them—him on the deck of the merchantman, her watching from beneath the awning on Coyote. What she saw in that resolute, unflinching dark gaze of his was cold, hard, very real danger. She glanced at Tobias.
‘Something is wrong. Get the men out of there.’
‘What...? Hell, woman, nothing’s wrong.’ Tobias was looking at her in disbelief, as if she had run mad.
‘Do it,’ she insisted.
He glared at her but, at last, grudgingly gave the command.
But it was too late. In that tiny second everything changed. It happened so fast that there was nothing she could do. One minute the situation aboard the merchantman was quiet, controlled, run of the mill, the next, all hell had broken loose. The British produced weapons, and such a host of weapons that she had not seen aboard any mere merchant schooner before. They fought, hard and fast and with an expertise that surpassed Coyote’s crew. It was over almost as soon as it had begun. Easily handled, so that within a minute her crew on the deck of the merchantman were lying face down on its deck; all save young John Rishley, who was being held like a shield before the dark-eyed captain, the boy’s head pulled back to expose his pale vulnerability. A cutlass now glinted in the captain’s hand, as the wicked curve of its blade pressed against the youngster’s throat.
‘Sweet heaven!’ Kate whispered beneath her breath as her blood ran cold at the sight.
At that moment the rest of the British emerged from the schooner’s lower deck and cargo hold. Her men, who had ventured down there for the prize, were being led, bound and gagged.
It was not a situation in which Kate had ever found herself before. Her mind was whirring, her eyes flicking this way and that, seeking a means of escape for them all, but there was nothing. No way out—not with the merchant captain’s blade hard against John Rishley’s throat, if the man really was just a merchant captain, because Kate had seen a lot of British merchant captains, but never one like him. The boy was nineteen years old. Kate knew his mother and his sisters, too. His Aunt Rita taught Sunday School back home in Tallaholm. And Kate had sworn to them that she would do all she could to keep the boy safe. Now a British blade was pressed to his throat and the sight of it stirred such dark terrible memories that almost paralysed her with fear.
He frogmarched John Rishley before him, crossing the boarding plank over which Coyote’s crew had walked without the slightest suspicion of what was awaiting them on the other side. A lanky fair-haired fellow, who wore the robe and collar of a priest, followed in his wake.
‘When did you add abducting women to piracy, La Voile?’ The merchant captain’s gaze was fixed on Tobias. His English accent sounded foreign to her ear, but even so she could hear there was something educated about it. His voice was low-toned, serious, unemotional.
They thought her abducted? She opened her mouth to tell him the truth, to step up to the mark and own responsibility, for everything about him told her he was not just going to let Coyote and her crew go. There was a blade at a boy’s throat. This was serious. The masquerade was over.
But Tobias stepped forward first. ‘Who the hell are you to question me?’ he growled, donning the role of the captain he was coming to believe he really was.
As she and Tobias and Sunny Jim watched, the raven flew down from its perch high on the top of the mast, to land gently upon the merchant captain’s shoulder. He did not bat an eyelid at the raven’s presence. The bird sat there quite happily, preening its black feathers that shone blue in the sunlight, as if it were his usual perch.
The breath caught in Kate’s throat. She felt her heart kick, then gallop fast. Her stomach dropped right down to the deck beneath her feet. Not a merchant captain, after all. She knew who he was. She should have known the minute she set eyes on him.
‘He is the one they call North.’ Her throat was so dry that her voice sounded husky. Because she knew in full the implication of the man standing before them with his sword ready to slit John Rishley’s throat—for her crew, and for herself.
‘Lord help us!’ Sunny Jim whispered on her left-hand side.
She could hear the murmur that spread through her crew, could see the widening of their eyes, could hear someone beginning to pray.
Lord help them indeed.
Those dark eyes turned their attention to Kate. Now that she knew who he was she could have retreated from that gaze, but her pride would not let her.
‘At your service, madam,’ he said, and gave her a tiny bow of his head before returning his gaze to Tobias. ‘Let the woman go.’
Tobias laughed. ‘You can have her...if you leave my ship.’
‘I will leave your ship.’ North smiled and it was a smile that was colder and more cutting than other men’s glares. ‘You are the pirate La Voile?’
‘I’m La Voile, all right.’
‘Good,’ said North. ‘I would not want to take the wrong man.’
‘Like hell am I coming with you!’
North pressed the blade harder against John Rishley’s neck. ‘You want me to slit his throat while you watch? Or will you yield to spare him?’
Kate had to press a hand over her mouth to stop herself from crying out. Her heart was racing. She felt sick with fear and horror and rage. As her hand tightened against the handle of the long knife hidden beneath her skirts, she felt Sunny Jim’s grip around her wrist.
‘Don’t!’ he whispered fiercely. ‘Let him think you abducted. There’s too much at stake, Katie.’ The old man’s slip of the tongue, to use her girlhood name, showed just how serious the situation was. His crinkled pale blue eyes stared meaningfully into hers, reminding her of exactly how much was at stake both here and back at home in Tallaholm.
‘Go ahead. Slit it.’ Tobias grinned and shook his head, an excited expression on his face. He glanced down at the long blade of his cutlass, as if watching the way the sun glinted on the sharpness of the steel. Then suddenly with a great swing of his cutlass he ran at North, yelling, ‘But I’ll never yield to you, you English dog!’
‘No!’ Kate screamed, knowing Tobias’s foolhardy action would cost John Rishley his life.
It happened so fast that she could not have told how. One minute John Rishley was North’s shield, the next he had been thrown, alive and well, into another British grasp and a single slash of North’s blade had felled Tobias. She could see the dark stain spreading rapidly across Tobias’s chest, see the blood growing in a glistening pool on the scrubbed wooden deck beneath him.
Shock stole her breath.
The silence that followed was deafening. The seconds seemed to stretch.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
Kate stared. Tobias’s eyes were still wide open, dead and unseeing, staring with the same shock that she felt freezing like ice through her blood.
The priest, who seemed to be North’s second-in-command, walked over to where the body lay. Crouching down, he touched his fingers against Tobias’s neck.
‘Dead
